Dad Bloggers (on Facebook)

Blogroll

Network This Blog

And the Winner is . . .

Anna. She brought home a prize bag from school yesterday, but it took us a few guesses to figure out what she got the bag for.

“What’s this, Anna?” I asked.

“It’s for Peru,” she replied.

“Peru?” Julia asked. “You mean Read-to-feed?” The funds for the school’s Read-to-feed program goes to Heifer International to raise money to buy animals for subsistence farmers in Peru.

“Yes.”

“Is her Read-to-feed over already?” Julia asked me.

“No,” I said, checking her backpack. “She has another book.”

“Anna, is this for the Read-a-thon?” Julia asked. Anna had read a total of 810 minutes over seventeen days in her school’s Read-a-thon last February. Given that she more than doubled the goal of 340 minutes, we figured she’d finish at or near the top.

“Yes, the Read-a-thon.” An easy mistake for a six-year-old to make: confusing two reading projects.

We each congratulated her and gave her a big hug, and then Julia took a look through the bag: A t-shirt with her school logo on it, $5 gift card to a popular chain bookstore, a pass to a local athletic club, and . . .

“Free child’s lunch or dinner buffet.” Julia said pulling the last card out of the bag.

“Well I don’t have anything out for dinner.” I said.

Anna smiled. “Problem solved!”

Smart girl, but there was one small problem: we don’t do buffets anymore. With the exception of a local Mongolian grill with a takeout option, we haven’t been to a buffet in over a year and a half. “All you can eat” doesn’t fit with our new healthier lifestyle.

“They have salad and pizza bar,” Julia said. “We don’t have to get the full buffet.”

And we didn’t. A couple of slices of pizza for her, a caesar salad for me, salad and a breadstick for Anna, and we spilt dessert. We kept the price down and the calories too.

So the new rule: we don’t do buffets anymore, unless at least one of us is eating for free.

That one day, we will all hold hands and D A N C E in heaven, like birds on trees, being moved by the warm magnolia breeze, like purple annuals and yellow perennials growing in the same garden of love.